Through the Mill

The following post was originally published in the March 11, 2011 Cleveland Citizen.

In case you have not been paying attention, there are revolutions and dissent fermenting all over the world.  The uprising in the Middle East started over a street vendor in Tunisia whose scale was confiscated by a policeman he would have to bribe in order to get it back.  Instead, he bought a gallon of gasoline, walked to the police station and in the middle of the street, poured it over himself and with the strike of a match, immolated himself and set Northern Africa on fire.  At the same time in Egypt, a young man was brutally beaten to death by police.  His picture was posted on Facebook and people started to protest his death.  Before long, everyone in Egypt was Khaled Saeed and in 18 days another dictator fell.

In Madison, Wisconsin, the new Republican governor, Scott Walker, took a hardline with the state employees and their unions by attempting to strip them of most of their collective bargaining rights.  Thousands of public employee union brothers and sisters as well as many trade unions marched on Madison to make their voice heard.  The result has been weeks of vocal and forceful protest in the Wisconsin capitol to get the GOP majority to turn back from their position.

When Ohio governor John Kasich backed Senate Bill 5, he attempted the same draconian end-around his Wisconsin counterpart initiated.  The response from Ohio workers, both public and private, has been just as vocal:  public employees must not lose their collective bargaining rights.

The road to giving government employees collective bargaining rights is not as straight forward as might be expected and came much after they were secured in the private sector.

The right to collectively bargain was first written into law in the Railway Labor Act (1926) and it required employers to bargain with unions acting on behalf of their members.  When the National Labor Relations Act was enacted in 1935, it covered most private sector CBAs, but did not address the right of government employees at the federal, state and local levels to collectively bargain.  The right for federal employees was given by Executive Order 8880 in 1962 by President Kennedy but it did not extend those rights to governmental entities outside of the federal government.

Although federal law governs private sector organizing, it does not apply to state and local employees, agricultural or domestic workers.  The protection for those classes comes from state law.  It was not until 1983 that Ohio gave its public employees the right to collectively bargain, but also limited those rights such as the right to strike by police and firefighters.  In return they got binding arbitration which keeps them from striking or being locked out at the end of a contract that would otherwise continue in favor or the detriment of one party or the other.

So what does Ohio Senate Bill 5, (SB5) attempt to change for our public sector brothers and sisters?  According to the Sunday, February 27^th edition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer the bill would:

• Bar all public employees, including school employees, from striking,
• Allow collective bargaining on wages, but not working conditions.
• Limit wage bargaining on merit pay and eliminate automatic pay raises based on seniority.
• End employer pickups of the employee share of pension contributions.
• Cap employer health care contributions to 80% of the total cost.
• End binding arbitration for public safety unions.
• End automatic renewal of teacher contracts and limit current contracts to five years and one year thereafter.
• If state, municipalities, counties or school districts are declared to be in fiscal emergency by the auditor of state, they can unilaterally change collective bargaining agreements.

The newly minted Republican governors from across the nation truly do have legitimate budget issues to face.  Wisconsin faces a $137 million shortfall in this budget year and a projected $3.6 billion hole in the next two year budget.  Ohio is looking at an $8 billion chasm for its upcoming budget.  So, what has come to a head in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states is that they are changing the rules in order to legislate what they cannot negotiate.  A good analogy is a group of kids on the playground calling a timeout and arguing that a rule in the game is not fair because it gives one side an advantage when in truth the arguing side does not have enough talent to win the game on their own merit.

The one sure thing about this fight is that there will be a ballot initiate to restore the lost bargaining rights of public employees.  On the February 17^th Bob Frantz Show on WTAM 1100, Republican State Senator Tim Grendell of Chesterland set April 5^th as the drop-dead date for enacting SB5.  According to Grendell, if the bill is enacted before that date then a ballot initiative would make its way onto the ballot this November.  After that date, an initiative would be on the 2012 ballot which would see an increase in pro-union Democrats coming out to pass a constitutional amendment reversing the anti-union SB5 during a presidential election year.  This would put House and Senate Republicans in the unenviable position of defending themselves during reelection to their effected constituents, something they do not want to do.  This is the reason for the push to pass this bill as soon as possible.

The only hope that Grendell gave to stall or kill the bill would be it not passing constitutional muster with the Senate Republicans, but that seems to be fading as of this writing.  When asked if he supported the current version of SB5, Grendell said that while there is a need for collective bargaining reform, he indicated that this was not necessarily the right way to do it.

Gird your loins brothers and sisters, this is what a real union fight is all about.

UPDATE:  SB5 passed the Ohio Senate with a 17-16 party line vote with six Republicans voting no.  Senator Grendell voted no.

UPDATE: The following is an excerpt from AOL News 3/10/11

MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Senate succeeded in voting Wednesday to strip nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers, after Republicans outmaneuvered the chamber’s missing Democrats and approved an explosive proposal that has rocked the state and unions nationwide.

The Senate requires a quorum to take up any measures that spends money. But Republicans on Wednesday took all the spending measures out of the legislation and a special committee of lawmakers from both the Senate and Assembly approved the revised bill a short time later.

The unexpected yet surprisingly simple procedural move ended a stalemate that had threatened to drag on indefinitely. Until Wednesday’s stunning vote, it appeared the standoff would persist until Democrats returned to Madison from their self-imposed exile.